Aldrich Ames

Aldrich Ames (26 May 1941-) was a CIA officer who worked as a KGB double agent during the Cold War. He compromised highly classified CIA assets, leading to many deaths until he was convicted of espionage in 1994.

Biography
Aldrich Ames was born in River Falls, Washington in 1941, the son of a CIA employee. He became a CIA laborer and painter in 1960, and he went on to work in clerical jobs before becoming an agent in Turkey and targeting Soviet intelligence officers for recruitment. In spite of his successful infiltration of a Turkish communist group, his performance was only rated as "satisfactory", and he considered leaving the CIA due to his lack of recognition. He later worked in New York City, Mexico, and Washington, and he became an alcoholic and an unfaithful husband. By 1983, he had access to all CIA plans and operations against the Soviet KGB and GRU intelligence agencies. In 1985, the indebted Ames sold valueless information to the Soviets for $50,000, and he became a paid CIA insider. He identified ten top-level CIA and FBI sources who were reporting on Soviet activities, leading to him receiving large amounts of money and eliminating those who might discover his treason. Soon, CIA operatives in Eastern Europe began to disappear at an alarming rate, and these losses were initially blamed on Edward Lee Howard. Ames would go on to receive a total of $4.6 million from the Soviets, well above the CIA pay grade, and he wired considerable amounts of his money to his new Colombian wife's family in Bogota to both launder it and to help her poor family. In 1986, he was posted to Rome, but he had poor performance due to problematic drinking. In 1986 and 1991, he passed polygraph tests regarding his spying for Russia, but he was kept under constant surveillance after November 1993 after the CIA began to notice his lavish lifestyle. On 22 February 1994, he was formally chared with spying for the USSR and Russia, and he was sentenced to life in prison at Terre Haute prison.